Polarized hearing brings drilling debate to the Delaware River Basin
HONESDALE – Natural gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin will either save or devastate a region whose fate is in the hands of the interstate commission that regulates water quality there, according to the polarized testimony given by representatives of both sides of the drilling debate during hearings at Honesdale High School on Tuesday.
About 90 people spoke at an afternoon session attended by more than 300 people. It was one of four hearings held by the Delaware River Basin Commission in Honesdale and Liberty, N.Y. on Tuesday about proposed natural gas drilling regulations that would apply to the 13,539-square-mile watershed where drilling has largely been on hold while the commission develops its rules.
The basin contains most of Wayne, Pike and Monroe counties as well as slivers of Lackawanna and Luzerne.
If adopted, the regulations will complement rules in place or being developed by state environmental agencies – a necessary overlap because “the Delaware River Basin is a special place,” commission Executive Director Carol R. Collier said before the hearing: it provides drinking water to more than 15 million people and contains waterways whose exceptional value demands extra protection.
But the “redundancy” of regulations was one of the primary criticisms raised by speakers at the afternoon session, when comments were predominantly made by those who welcome the drilling.
Drilling supporters repeated concerns that the commission’s proposed regulations are so stringent that they will prevent drilling in Wayne County, they fail to balance economic concerns with environmental ones, and they take away private property owners’ rights.
“You have the audacity to claim that your proposed regulations prevail over our commonwealth, disregarding our own laws,” Wayne County landowner Carol Woodmansee yelled into the microphone in the high school’s auditorium. “Your true agenda is to never cut a tree, put Wayne County out of business and condemn us to an existence of bucolic poverty.”
The sole gas drilling industry representative – David Callahan of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, which represents most of the major operators in the state – gave an outline of the industry’s opposition to the proposed rules, especially a centerpiece of the regulations that would require drillers with more than five well pads to detail in advance their foreseeable activity in a defined geographic area, including each well pad, access road, pipeline and compressor station.
“The requirement of a ‘Natural Gas Development Plan’ is unworkable, mandating our industry to detail infrastructure plans years prior to any development,” Mr. Callahan said. “Few industries can provide such plans that far in advance.”
The gas drilling coalition also questioned the power the draft regulations give to the DRBC executive director to set standards on a case-by-case basis and whether the commission even has the legal authority to set standards for the siting, design and operation of gas well pads.
Drilling opponents, many wearing “Don’t Drill the Delaware” stickers, expressed frustration that the commission developed the draft regulations before any studies of the cumulative impact of natural gas operations on the watershed have begun.
They also argued the proposed rules rely too much on the industry to police itself and ignore what they say are inherent risks in the drilling process that will inevitably lead to accidents and contamination.
“These rules will not prevent individual catastrophic pollution events, and they also will not prevent the cumulative environmental degradation that you are supposed to prevent,” Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said as a handful of audience members raised small signs that read “Do No Harm.”
“The DRBC is our only defense against gasland, and we will not let you sacrifice our water for gas,” she said.
The audience at the afternoon session largely honored rules that barred protests and heckling, save for a few jibes at “Gasland” filmmaker Josh Fox, who testified against the drilling, and a comment that the commission is like “a manure salesman with a mouthful of samples.” Drilling supporters wore neon stickers that read, “I support NG in the DRB,” and someone snuck one onto the back of outspoken drilling opponent James Barth’s jacket.
Speakers lined up in the cold two hours before the doors opened at 12:30 p.m. to ensure a spot at the podium, which was first come, first served.
One request made by drilling opponents, for more time for public comment and more public hearings, will be addressed during a meeting of the river basin’s commissioners on March 2, Ms. Collier said.
About 1,600 written comments had been submitted to the agency before the start of Tuesday’s hearings. The draft regulations and a link to provide written comments online are at www.drbc.net.
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: February 23, 2011
Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/polarized-hearing-brings-drilling-debate-to-the-delaware-river-basin-1.1109222#axzz1EhEszGKz
Drilling awareness group to meet Thursday
The monthly general membership meeting of the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Graham Academy, 469 Miller St., Luzerne.
GDAC meetings are open to all who are concerned about the hazards of natural gas drilling and related activities in our community. For information, call 570-266-5116, e-mail gdacoalition@gmail.com or visit www.gdacoalition.org.
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling-awareness-group-to-meet-thursday-1.1108613#axzz1EbOFXxDI
Published: February 22, 2011
Porter Township opposes natural gas drilling
MUIR – The Porter Township Board of Supervisors made clear at its meeting Monday night that it opposes any Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling inside township borders.
“We will fight this if it comes to Porter Township,” Supervisor Bill Schaeffer said at the meeting after the issue was raised by several residents in attendance.
Rausch Creek Land LP, Valley View, has applied to the Susquehanna River Basin Commission for approval to withdraw up to 100,000 gallons of water each day from an abandoned strip mine pit in the township. In paperwork filed with Schuylkill County, the company states the water would be used for potential Marcellus Shale drilling, but questions remain and the company has refused to discuss its plans.
Nine township households bordering the land from which water may be withdrawn received letters from the company in December, but some of those residents believe those letters did not answer all of the outstanding questions.
Township resident Bonnie Minnich said she has considered starting a petition opposing potential gas drilling.
“I’m trying, but I’m only one” person, she said at the meeting.
Township resident Perry Pillar said the township will eventually have to address the concerns residents have.
“You’re going to have to take some of this in your hands,” he told the supervisors.
Schaeffer cited “horror stories” from northern Pennsylvania counties about water contamination when asked why the board of supervisors opposes potential drilling.
“We’re worried about our water safety,” Supervisor Troy Troup said after the meeting.
Rausch Creek Land owns property in Porter, Frailey, Tremont and Hegins townships.
While the paperwork filed in the county courthouse makes clear the water will be used for drilling on Rausch Creek land, it does not say if that land is in Schuylkill County. It is unclear whether the company owns land elsewhere in the state or if the water would be trucked to other areas in Pennsylvania where drilling is already under way.
The water withdrawal plan likely won’t be decided on by the SRBC until the summer.
http://republicanherald.com/news/porter-township-opposes-natural-gas-drilling-1.1108522
BY BEN WOLFGANG (STAFF WRITER bwolfgang@republicanherald.com)
Published: February 22, 2011
Natural gas drilling symposium scheduled
The Pocono Environmental Coalition and Wildlife Society is sponsoring a natural gas drilling symposium on March 5, 1:30 p.m., at Hughes Library in Stroudsburg.
For information call (610) 381-8989.
http://www.tnonline.com/node/176078
Reported on Monday, February 21, 2011
Pro-drilling group wants states to regulate gas drilling
A coalition of landowners in the Delaware River Basin plans to tell the interstate agency that regulates water quality in the basin to stop trying to regulate natural gas drilling.
Instead, the pro-drilling group suggests the Delaware River Basin Commission renegotiate and strengthen its agreements with its member states, including Pennsylvania and New York, and let those states handle the regulation of gas drilling in the basin’s borders.
“They are going to put in rules that duplicate what the states are already doing, they’ll be forced to create a staff which will be green and inexperienced, and they will not be able to do the job,” Peter Wynne, spokesman for the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance, said Friday after the coalition held a press briefing in Honesdale about its criticisms.
The group, which finds the commission’s proposed drilling regulations “totally unworkable,” will be among many concerned citizens, lawmakers and groups that will offer comment on the draft rules in written testimony and at public hearings next week.
The proposed rules are available for review at www.drbc.net.
A set of local hearings will be held at Honesdale High School at 1:30 and 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Published: February 20, 2011
http://standardspeaker.com/news/pro-drilling-group-wants-states-to-regulate-gas-drilling-1.1107714
Landfill accepts gas drilling waste
DUNMORE – Keystone Sanitary Landfill in Dunmore has accepted tons of gas drilling waste that can contain radioactive material and heavy metals, according to documents obtained by Times-Shamrock newspapers.
Environmentalists raised red flags about the practice, but industry and state officials said it posed no public health risk.
At least four natural gas companies have received approval from the landfill to dump “drill cuttings” – deep underground rock and soil removed during the drilling process along with chemical additives. Cabot Oil and Gas, Chesapeake Energy, Chief Oil and Gas, and Stone Energy are identified in the documents, obtained through a Right-To-Know request to the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The documents were submitted by Keystone Sanitary Landfill manager Joe Dexter in a report to DEP last summer. Multiple efforts to contact Dexter, including a visit to the site by a reporter Friday, were unsuccessful.
The landfill accepted at least 17,710 tons of the material over a six-month period last year from July through December 2010, mostly from Cabot Oil and Gas, according to DEP records.
The documents show Chesapeake Energy was approved to dump drill cuttings at Keystone as early as November 2009, including from multiple Marcellus Shale wells in Auburn Township, Susquehanna County.
The drill cuttings, which gas company officials say are benign and environmentalists claim contain a stew of chemical additives, is an economic boon for Keystone, which had an average daily volume of 4,000 tons of waste accepted in 2010.
The landfill is owned by Dunmore businessman Louis DeNaples. Keystone also accepts sludge from municipal wastewater plants, asbestos and other products containing PCBs, and a medley of residential and commercial waste.
The new trash stream has come from Marcellus Shale wells as close as Susquehanna County, where horizontal drilling and gas production has kicked into high gear. One completed Stone Energy natural gas well in Rush Township produced 630 tons of drill cuttings that made its way to Keystone Sanitary Landfill last year.
One Marcellus Shale well can produce as much as 1,000 tons of drill cuttings, Cabot spokesman George Stark said, as drill bits bore more than a mile vertically and horizontally beneath the ground through several geologic layers to reach the gas.
Keystone is among a growing number of landfills throughout the state that are taking the cuttings as gas companies move away from on-site burial, which is allowed under state law as long as drill cutting pits are lined and covered in plastic.
“We’re hoping to develop that side of the business,” said John Hambrose, spokesman for Alliance Sanitary Landfill in Ransom and Taylor. “It happens that we haven’t received any yet. We’re always looking to increase our volume.”
Mark Carmon, a DEP spokesman, said landfills are allowed to take the drill cuttings under their general municipal waste permit, but must abide by special regulations for the material. Regulators also examine its chemical composition on a “well pad by well pad basis” to determine if it is safe for disposal, Carmon said.
Keystone also has radiation monitors in place that would detect if drill cuttings contained unsafe levels.
“We are sensitive to the concern. That’s why there are a lot of controls on these facilities,” Carmon said. “We are not seeing any problems at all. If we did, they wouldn’t be able to accept it.”
He added there has been no indication of any issues at Keystone with the material.
Landfills cannot accept wastewater from gas drilling, the toxic mixture of fracking fluids and underground substances produced after a well is hydraulically fractured. Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” involves blasting millions of gallons of chemically treated water thousands of feet into the ground to open cracks in the shale and release the gas. Besides the chemical additives, the water comes back with substances from the depths, including naturally-occurring radioactive material and a high concentration of salt.
“Wastewater would have to be either recycled or go to a (wastewater) treatment facility,” Carmon said.
Gas industry officials say the move to deposit drill cuttings in landfills is part of a “closed loop” approach that attempts to mitigate environmental impact and reuse some materials.
“Chesapeake utilizes a closed-loop drilling process that eliminates the need for drilling (disposal) pits throughout the Marcellus,” Brian Grove, a company executive based in Towanda, wrote in an e-mail. “This process separates drill cuttings into steel bins that are taken off-site for disposal in approved regional landfills.”
Grove said the process reduces the footprint of a well site since a disposal location is not needed and works better with sites that have multiple gas wells that produce thousands of tons of drill cuttings.
Stark, of Cabot, and Chief spokeswoman Kristi Gittins said all of their companies’ drill cuttings are now being disposed of in landfills, including Keystone. The companies are drilling extensively in Susquehanna County.
The drill cuttings are considered residual waste, a category removed from household waste, Carmon said. DEP chemists decide whether a toxic substance can be safely deposited in a municipal landfill, testing its reactivity to other substances, among other procedures.
“This is not an issue,” Carmon said. “We’re talking about rocks. If there was going to be a consistent problem setting off these (radiation) monitors, it wouldn’t be worth it for the landfills.”
Not everyone agrees.
Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of Delaware Riverkeeper, an environmental advocacy group, said drill cuttings contain a host of “dangerous chemicals,” other substances found deep underground including arsenic and mercury, and naturally occurring radioactive materials that may present environmental and public health risks, even in a landfill.
“Everything that is in that (underground geologic) formation is going to be in those cuttings,” Carluccio said. “We may be seeing the buildup of radioactive and other hazardous materials in landfills.”
Glenn C. Miller, Ph.D., an environmental chemist at the University of Nevada, said judging the potential environmental harm of drill cuttings is difficult in part because gas companies refuse to disclose the additives used during drilling, claiming the information is proprietary.
Miller said it is also less understood how harmful the naturally occurring radioactive material in the Marcellus Shale rock can be, considering that its intensity can greatly differ depending on the location of a well.
“Exactly what the risks are, I think they are still evolving,” he said. “It’s not well-defined.”
By Steve McConnell
smcconnell@timesshamrock.com
Published: February 20, 2011
http://citizensvoice.com/news/landfill-accepts-gas-drilling-waste-by-steve-mcconnell-1.1107634#axzz1EJyoubc5
Harveys Lake to hold hearing on drilling ban
HARVEYS LAKE – After months of pressure by residents, council gave in Tuesday and voted for an official hearing on a proposed ordinance to ban natural gas drilling in the borough.
Council members Diane Dwyer, Larry Radel and Carole Samson voted to advertise and hold a hearing to adopt the “Harveys Lake Community Water Rights and Local Self-Government Ordinance” drawn up by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Councilman Ryan Doughton and President Fran Kopko voted no, and Councilman Boyd Barber abstained.
“Hallelujah,” said resident Neil Turner, a main proponent of the ordinance.
About 70 people attended, many of whom favored the ordinance, which would prohibit water from any source in the borough being used in natural gas drilling, hold neighboring municipalities liable for harm to water sources and make it “unlawful for any corporation to engage in the extraction of natural gas” in the borough.
Critics of the ordinance say the self-governance aspect and potential conflict with the state Oil & Gas Act could get the borough sued or else lose its state funding.
“It’s plain and simple: this ordinance violates state law,” Doughton said. “There’s not one logical, reasonable explanation that makes sense to pass this.”
Those in favor say there’s no conflict and point to other communities, such as Pittsburgh, that passed similar ones. Although council asked a consultant to look into ways the borough can be protected via the zoning ordinance, Turner said they are “two totally different approaches.”
The state Oil & Gas Act could override a zoning ordinance but not the CELDF ordinance, resident Carol Culver said, adding that if the borough does get sued, CELDF will help defend its ordinance in court.
By Elizabeth Skrapits, Staff Writer
Published: February 17, 2011
eskrapits@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2072
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/harveys-lake-to-hold-hearing-on-drilling-ban-1.1106145#axzz1EJyoubc5
Webinar next Wednesday on Household Water Treatment Systems
The Water Resources Extension Webinar series will continue next week with a presentation on Household Water Treatment Systems on February 23 from noon to 1 PM by Dr. Tom McCarty. Tom is an Extension Educator with Penn State Cooperative Extension in Cumberland County.
Webinar Summary
If you have seen one of those fiberglass “missile” tanks in a basement and wondered “what is that for?” or have been curious about the extra sink spout that supplies “RO” water, please come and join the discussion at noon on February 23rd. The webinar will discuss the need for household water treatment and various approaches to treatment. We’ll discuss disinfection, softening, iron removal, rotten-egg odor (hydrogen sulfide) treatment, corrosion control, chlorine removal, and other devices to provide small amounts of high purity water for drinking and cooking. You won’t be an expert by the end of lunch but the tips we’ll provide will allow you to ask some pretty good questions of the next water treatment salesman. And for sure you will have some insight into whether or not there should be some treatment equipment on your drinking water supply.
How to Partcipate
The live webinar will occur from noon to 1 PM and is accessible at: https://breeze.psu.edu/water1
To participate in the live webinar you will need to have registered and received a “Friend of Penn State” ID and password. To learn more about registration and additional details about the webinar series, go to:
http://extension.psu.edu/water/webinar-series/schedule/registration
Taped versions of each webinar in the series are available to anyone. A link to the presentation video along with a PDF copy of the presentation slides, links to relevant publications, and a copy of the question/answer session are posted at:
http://extension.psu.edu/water/webinar-series/past-webinars
Addional Upcoming Webinars
March 30, 2011 – Management of Nuisance Aquatic Plants and Algae in Ponds and Lakes
April 27, 2011 – Using Rain Barrels and Rain Gardens to Manage Household Stormwater
Budget cuts tap out safe drinking water
In all of the debate on Capitol Hill about cutting budgets, you wouldn’t expect water to get a great deal of attention. But it should.
The Continuing Resolution set to emerge from the House this week makes drastic reductions in support for critical functions of the Environmental Protection Agency – the federal entity charged with protecting water supplies for hundreds of millions of Americans. But slashing the EPA’s budget, without shifting legal and financial responsibility to polluters, will leave America’s fisheries, drinking water supplies, and coastal areas vulnerable. No one else is guarding the door to the henhouse – quite literally, it turns out, when it comes to water pollution.
Industrial animal agriculture operations in the U.S. generate up to one billion tons of manure annually, most of which is applied – untreated – to cropland. As a result, according to the EPA, drinking water sources for an estimated 43 percent of the U.S. population have suffered some level of pathogen contamination associated with livestock operations, and 29 states have identified livestock feeding operations as a source of water pollution. In Congressional testimony, the U.S. Geological Survey identified livestock manure as the single largest source of nitrogen pollution in major rivers across the country, including rivers in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, California and Wisconsin.
As food animal production in the U.S. has shifted from family farms to a concentrated industrial production system, efforts to protect the environment, rural communities and water supplies have not kept pace. These massive operations, housing thousands of hogs or hundreds of thousands of chickens in tight quarters, produce manure and other waste on an equally large scale, but continue to be regulated under a now-antiquated set of rules designed for small family farms. Corporations that own slaughterhouses, packing facilities and livestock often contract with farmers to raise the animals to the point of slaughter and argue that they bear no liability for compliance with Clean Water Act permits during the production period. The companies own the animals; the farmers are stuck with the manure.
Under this system, corporate owners have not been obligated to provide any financial assistance to farmers for the costs of waste treatment and disposal. As a result, local water utilities spend millions monitoring and treating this water pollution, and treasured gems like the Chesapeake Bay suffer from livestock-related pollution, while taxpayers pay the cleanup costs through EPA water programs. These programs are now on the chopping block.
Congressional efforts to find legitimate savings through efficiency and the elimination of waste in government programs are of course laudable. But members of Congress also have a responsibility to ensure that alternatives to government spending are identified so the health and welfare of millions of Americans is not jeopardized.
When it comes to water pollution, the polluters – and not the general public – should be responsible for cleaning up their own waste. It¹s time for industrial animal agriculture to pay its fair share.
By Karen Steuer – 02/15/11
Karen Steuer is Director of Government Relations for the Pew Environment Group.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/144261-budget-cuts-tap-out-safe-drinking-water
Local epicenter of shale drilling likely site for EPA fracking study
Susquehanna and Bradford counties have been selected as one among five areas across the country that might be chosen by the Environmental Protection Agency for case studies of oil and gas drilling’s impact on drinking water.
The case study finalists are all places where oil or gas wells have been hydraulically fractured and where drinking water contamination has been reported.
The finalists were included in the draft study plan the EPA released last week for its multiyear investigation of the possible link between groundwater contamination and hydraulic fracturing or fracking, the process of injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into underground rock formations to crack the rock and release the oil or gas trapped there.
The EPA plans to investigate the full life cycle of the hydraulic fracturing process, from the moment water for fracking is withdrawn from waterways through the mixing of chemicals and the fracturing of wells to the disposal of the wastewater that returns to the surface.
The agency selected five areas – two in Pennsylvania and one each in Colorado, Texas and North Dakota – as case study finalists. It may choose three to five of them as retrospective case studies, or studies of areas already reporting impacts from drilling. Other areas, including Greene County, Pa., are proposed as prospective case studies where the agency will seek to measure any impact from fracking as it happens.
Marcellus Shale drilling areas in Bradford and Susquehanna were chosen as case study finalists so the agency can investigate contamination in groundwater and drinking water wells, as well as suspected surface-water contamination from a fracturing fluid spill and methane contamination in water wells, according to the draft study plan. The agency will use both existing data and information gathered through its own testing and modeling to determine if any contamination is linked to fracking activities.
A panel of scientists will review the draft study plan on March 7 and 8. The EPA will begin the study as soon as it incorporates the panel’s recommendations. The agency plans to release initial research results by the end of 2012 and may issue an additional report in 2014 after further research.
By Laura Legere (TIMES-SHAMROCK WRITER)
Published: February 15, 2011
http://thedailyreview.com/news/local-epicenter-of-shale-drilling-likely-site-for-epa-fracking-study-1.1104963